Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (March 21, 1902[1][2] – October 19, 1988) was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music.

After killing a man, allegedly in self-defense, he spent time at Parchman Farm in 1928 and 1929. The official story on the killing is that sometime around 1927 or 1928, he was playing in a juke joint when a man went on a shooting spree. Son was wounded in the leg, and shot the man dead. He received a 15-year sentence at Parchman Farm prison.[4]

Son House recorded for Paramount Records in 1930 and for Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress in 1941 and 1942. He then faded from public view until the country blues revival in the 1960s when, after a long search of the Mississippi Delta region by Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro, he was "re-discovered" in June 1964 in Rochester, New York, where he had lived since 1943. House had been retired from the music business for many years, working for the New York Central Railroad, and was completely unaware of the international revival of enthusiasm for his early recordings. He subsequently toured extensively in the US and Europe and recorded for CBS records. Like Mississippi John Hurt he was welcomed into the music scene of the 1960s and played at Newport Folk Festival in 1964, the New York Folk Festival in July 1965, and the October 1967 European tour of the American Folk Festival along with Skip James and Bukka White. Son House can be seen in the documentary "The Howling Wolf Story". House and Howlin' Wolf had been close early in Wolf's career. However, in the documentary, when Wolf was performing during the 1966 Newport Folk Festival, House was drunk and making a lot of noise during Wolf's set. This angered Wolf who started telling House, from the stage, that all he cared about was whiskey and that he had had a chance to do something with his life but threw it away, to paraphrase Wolf. The young Alan Wilson (musician) ("Canned Heat") was one of Son House`s biggest fans. The producer John Hammond Sr. asked Alan Wilson, who was just 22 years old, to teach "Son House how to play like Son House," because Alan Wilson had such a good knowledge of the blues styles. The album "The Father of Delta Blues - The Complete 1965 Sessions" was the result." Son House played with Alan Wilson live. It can be heard on the album "John - the Revelator: The 1970 London Sessions".

Ill health plagued his later years and in 1974 he retired once again, and later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he remained until his death from cancer of the larynx. He was buried at the Mt. Hazel Cemetery. Members of the Detroit Blues Society raised money through benefit concerts to put a fitting monument on his grave. He had been married five times.

Style and influence

House's innovative style featured strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of a bottleneck, coupled with singing that owed more than a nod to the hollers of the chain gangs. His music was emphatically a dance music, meant to be heard in the noisy atmosphere of a barrelhouse or other dance hall. House was the primary influence on Muddy Waters and also an important influence on Robert Johnson. It was House who, speaking to awe-struck young blues fans in the 1960s, spread the legend that Johnson had sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical powers.

Another musician deeply influenced by Son House is the slide player John Mooney, who in his teens learned slide guitar from Son House while Son was living in Rochester, New York. Several of House's songs were recently featured in the motion picture soundtrack of "Black Snake Moan" (2006).

It is difficult to describe the transformation that took place as this smiling, friendly man hunched over his guitar and launched himself, bodily it seemed, into his music. The blues possessed him like a 'lowdown shaking chill' and the spellbound audience saw the very incarnation of the blues as, head thrown back, he hollered and groaned the disturbing lyrics and flailed the guitar, snapping the strings back against the fingerboard to accentuate the agonized rhythm. Son's music is the centre of the blues experience and when he performs it is a corporeal thing, audience and singer become as one.

Discography

Son House's recorded works fall into four categories:

9 songs recorded in 1930 for Paramount Records, for commercial release on 78s. Many of these were recorded as two songs with the same title, e.g. "My Black Mama" parts 1 and 2. See also Clarksdale Moan.

Alan Lomax's non-commercial recordings ("Library of Congress Sessions") in 1941 and 1942 - a total of 19 songs.

Studio recordings from 1965 and later following his "rediscovery"

Live recordings, also from this period.

These have been collected, issued and reissued in a baffling array of ways, some of which use the word "complete" in unexpected ways. The following list is partial and uncategorized.

Dick Waterman relates that when The Rolling Stones met Howlin' Wolf in 1965, they asked who the older man with him was, toward whom Howlin' Wolf was so respectful. They were awestruck to hear it was Son House, whom they knew as "the man who taught Robert Johnson".[5]

References

^ His date of birth is a matter of some debate. Son House himself alleged that he was middle aged during World War I, and, more specifically, that he was 79 in 1965, which would mean that he was born around 1886. However, all legal records place his birth on March 21, 1902.

Depeche Mode use a reworking of John the Revelator on their 2005 album, ‘Playing the Angel’ . The spirit of this somewhat far removed from the original pointing to the religious viciousness and hypocrisy encouraged by the tone taken in the Bible, in the Revelations St John the Devine; locating here its insularity, and rejection of Judeism and Islam from the same access to God.

Son House - Father Of The Delta Blues : Complete 1965 Sony/Legacy Cd 48867

Living Legends (1 Cut, 1966) Verve/Folkways 3010

Real Blues (1 Cut, U Of Chicago, 1964) Takoma 7081

John The Revelator - 1970 London Sessions Sequel Cd 207

Great Bluesmen/Newport (2 Cuts, 1965) Vanguard Cd 77/78

Blues With A Feeling (3 Cuts, 1965) Vanguard Cd 77005

Son House/Bukka White - Masters Of The Country Blues Yazoo Video 500 :

Delta Blues And Spirituals (1995)

In Concert (Live) (1996)

Live At Gaslight Cafe, 1965 (2000)

New York Central Live (2003)

Delta Blues (1941-1942) (2003) Biograph Cd 118

Proper Introduction to Son House (2004) Proper (contains everything recorded on years 1930, 1940 & 1941)

Notes

↑ There is doubt about his date of birth. Son House himself said that he was middle aged during World War I, and that he was 79 in 1965. This would mean that he was born around 1886. However, all legal records place his birth on March 211902.